Reframing the Age of Revolutions

大约1750年至1850年的“革命时代”是许多不同类型的历史学家的中心概念。我们在科学和文化史以及政治和经济史上都听到了对它的提及；许多人指出它的全球影响力，发现在印度洋、太平洋或中东，以及更熟悉的欧洲和北大西洋范围内，存在着一个“革命时代”。“时代”也具有广泛的当代意义：我们今天面临的核心问题，从气候变化到民族主义，都源于它的革命性变革，而一个重大但计划外且往往是混乱的变革时期的概念，在当前这个不稳定的时刻引起了共鸣。然而，自从上世纪60年代埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆和R·R·帕尔默首次提出“革命时代”这一概念以来，很少有人重新审视我们所说的历史框架。该项目将使不同学科的历史学家与今天面临类似挑战的民间社会活动家和非政府组织代表汇聚一堂。通过他们对这个革命时代的不同角度的对话，我们将努力建立一套新的框架。把一次变革称为“革命性的”是什么意思？我们是应该谈论1750-1850年间全球的“革命时代”，还是应该谈论其特定的地区？思想史、科学史、政治史和工业史上有没有“革命性”的发展？我们对话的结果将向学术界、活动家和更广泛的公众公布，开启关于我们应该如何理解世界历史上这一关键时刻的更广泛的公众讨论。

The 'age of revolutions' of about 1750 to 1850 is a central concept for many different kinds of historians. We hear references to it in histories of science and culture as well as politics and economics; many point to its global reach, discovering an 'age of revolutions' in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, or the Middle East, as well as the more familiar Europe and North Atlantic spheres. The 'age' has a broad contemporary relevance, too: central problems we face today, from climate change to nationalism, find origin-points in its revolutionary transformations, and the very notion of a period of major but unplanned and often chaotic change strikes a chord with the present unsettled moment. Yet since the concept of an 'age of revolutions' was first popularised in the 1960s by Eric Hobsbawm and R. R. Palmer, there has been little re-examination of what we mean by it as a historical framing. This project will bring together historians across different subdisciplines with civil society activists and NGO representatives facing similar challenges today. Through dialogue between their different angles of approach to this revolutionary age, we will work towards a new set of framings. What does it mean to call a change 'revolutionary'? Should we speak of an 'age of revolutions' across the globe in 1750-1850, or in particular regions of it? Were there 'revolutionary' developments in the histories of thought and science as well as in politics or industry? The results of our conversations will be made available to academic, activist, and wider publics, opening up broader public discussions on how we should understand this crucial moment in world history.